The "ADVOCATE!" youth exchange is essentially the product of a discussion that took place at the end of 2022, between representatives of the ODTIZ Institute and representatives of the Turkish non-governmental organization UGARD, at the so-called kick-off meeting for the long-term Erasmus+ project "Able2Travel", which is supported by the Austrian national agency and whose project partners are the ODTIZ Institute and the UGARD organization. The subject of our discussion was the turbulent times that have engulfed Europe in the last three years (from the COVID-19 pandemic to the unrest of war), which resulted in the fundamental human rights and freedoms of Europeans (according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948) being violated many times in a very short time-period. During the discussion, we have concluded that uncertainty about the future prevails among the majority of young Europeans, they question the relevance of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights in modern society, and therefore, in most cases, they have adopted a passive attitude towards advocating for the rights in question. We also concluded that the understanding and the very position of the "enforcement" of human rights, especially the rights of persons with disabilities (according to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), varies from country to country, due to different social and cultural conditions in different countries. All these findings led to the creation of the "ADVOCATE!" project, to which we later invited partner organizations from Latvia, Poland and Romania as well. With the implementation of the “ADVOCATE!” project through various activities (that were performed live and based on non-formal learning methods), we wanted to help young people with and without disabilities from different European countries to better know and understand fundamental human rights, why respecting them is important and why it is important to advocate for them and in what ways this can be done, within the rule of law. During the project, we especially wanted to shed light on the fundamental rights of persons with disabilities (as one of the largest marginalized groups in Europe) and draw attention to the issue of violations of these rights. With this, we wanted to change the role of young Europeans from being just passive observers of what is happening around them to being the proactive designers of a society that will be based on respect for fundamental human rights, encouraging their advocacy and observing the principles of the rule of law. We empowered project participants in the field of fundamental human rights and advocacy by achieving the following objectives in our project: - we enabled young people to exchange opinions, experiences, and views on the topic through the use of informal learning methods, in an international environment, - we introduced young people to various areas of fundamental human rights and the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights through experiential learning workshops, - we encouraged discussion among young people about their rights in various areas through the use of open dialogue and with workshops that encourage discussion, - we helped young people to overcome stereotypes, by changing their perception of persons with disabilities, from a perspective based on the approach of offering help, to a perspective based on the approach of understanding their basic human rights, by combining young people with and without disabilities within the project group, - among young people without disabilities, we increased awareness on problems/obstacles which young persons with disabilities have to face in different areas of their lives, - we enabled young people to research the provision of respect for human rights in other participating countries, - we helped the participants acquire and improve advocacy skills to successfully defend the fundamental human rights of all, both those with and without disabilities, - we introduced to the participants examples of good advocacy and jointly developed new ones, in nationally mixed groups, where people with different abilities collaborated and supported each other, - participants were told about the legal options available to them when they encounter a violation of fundamental human rights.